"_Je suis donc un foudre de guerre?_ What
on earth is she running away from me for?"

Maria Dolores smiled mysteriously.

"Ah," she said, "she asked me not to tell you. I am in the delicate
position of confidante."

"And therefore I hope you'll tell me with the less reluctance," said
John, urbanely unprincipled. "A confidante always betrays her confidence
to some one,--that's the part of the game that makes it worth while."

Maria Dolores' smile deepened.

"In that pale green frock, on that bank of dark-green moss, with her
complexion and her hair,--by Jove, how stunning she is!" thought John,
in a commotion.

"Well," she said, "Annunziata ran away because she didn't want you to
see that she'd been crying."

John raised his eyebrows, the blue eyes under them becoming expressive
of dismay.

"Crying?" he echoed. "The poor little kiddie! What had she been crying
about!"

"That is a long story, and involves some of her peculiar theological
tenets," said Maria Dolores. "But, in a single word, about your
friend."

John's eyebrows descended to their normal level, and drew together.

"Crying about my friend? What friend?" he puzzled.

"Your friend the priest--the man who has been passing the day here with
you," explained Maria Dolores.

John gave a start, threw back his head, and eyed her with astonishment.

"That is extraordinary," he exclaimed.

"What?" asked she, lightly glancing up.

"That you should call him my friend the priest," said John, wagging a
bewildered head.

"Why? Isn't he a priest? He has all the air of one," said Maria Dolores.

"No; he's an American millionaire," said John, succinctly.

Maria Dolores moved in her place, and laughed.

"Dear me!" she said, "I did strike wide of the mark. An American
millionaire should cultivate a less deceptive appearance. With that
thin, shaven face of his, and that look of an early Christian martyr in
his eyes, and the dark clothes he wears, wherever he goes he's sure to
be mistaken for a priest."

"Yes," said John, with a kind of grimness; "that's what's extraordinary.
He comes of a long line of bigoted Protestants, he's a reincarnation of
some of his stern old Puritan forebears, and you find that he looks like
their pet abomination, a Romish priest. Well, you have a prophetic eye."

Maria Dolores gazed up inquiringly. "A prophetic eye?" she questioned.

"I merely mean," said John, with thaumaturgic airiness, "that the man is
on his way to Rome